Hi everyone. If all goes to plan I'll be working in Basel from mid January. I currently live in central London and don't own a car, but I'm thinking of buying one and bringing it with me.

I'll be keeping my flat in London and hence will register the car here in the UK.

Many posts on this forum say that a car can only be kept on foreign plates for 12 months when brought into Switzerland. I don't intend on importing the car because I will have owned it less than 6 months before I start work and hence will get charged all the import duties/vat etc.

A couple of posts have referred to document 15.50 downloadable from http://www.ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_pri...x.html?lang=en.

Point 4.3 in that form states that one may keep a foreign registered car for two years. That will be long enough for me. After two years I'll decide what to do. I understand that the car must be returned to the UK at least once so that it's not marked as "exported" and that it needs to be fully UK road legal.

My question is ... is it one year or two? Does anyone know for sure?

I brought mine over from the UK and was given one year, also you need to then have the car MOTd here and it has to come up to Swiss standards regardless of age. The head lamps would need to be changed because of the direction of the beam. It was a bit too much hassle so I sold it. Have you thought of leasing a car here in Switzerland....would be a lot less hassle

I say 12months is the norm although there maybe circumstances where it can be extended.
The people in the know when i registered my UK car here recently (no where near as bad as I was led to believe) confirmed it was 12months.

So the form 15.50 is wrong. Pity, as 2 years would have been good.

If it's just one year then leasing might be the way forward. Or maybe I'll suck it and see, and register with mobility.ch if I need a car just for cross-border shopping trips and the like. I plan on bringing my bicycle with me (or buying a new one) for short trips.

It's just that I fancy the idea of spending the weekends exploring around, and also visiting some good friends I have in Stuttgart. I could go by train but it seems that if I don't plan a few weeks in advance it's pretty expensive.

4.6: You may keep it for two years duty-free, but not put the vehicle into circulation (ie: bring the car here but not drive it, eg for collectors cars)

5.2 "In accordance with the Traffic Registration Ordinance (SR 741.51), foreign motor vehicles and trailers must have Swiss registration documents and be fitted with Swiss licence plates if:
a)
they have been located in Switzerland for more than one year without interruption of more than three consecutive months;"

That's pretty clear, oder?

It would be clear, if that was what "circulation" meant. However, it appears to mean "duties paid / properly imported". So 4.6 means that the car can be kept for two years without being imported/registered. And point 5.2 is negated by points 4.x as they are "special cases".

Maybe I'm trying to be too smart and am bending the meaning to fit with what I want rather than what it actually means! Thanks for checking it, FriendlyKiwi.